Garlic Piperade Soup: Put those 80 cloves of garlic to good use!

This recipe–with its 80 cloves of garlic, blanched and then minced–maybe should have made me blanche when I first ran across it in my worn copy of Jane Brody’s Good Food Book. But I didn’t even flinch. In fact, I did the opposite of blanche: I became intrigued, and instantly I was filled with a desire to make this soup more than anything else on earth. Well, nearly.

I love garlic, and I love how good it is for me and my family, so I decided to give it a try, although I held my breath when I served it to my family. Garlic is a natural antibiotic and an antioxidant, after all, among other things, so of course I’m going to try to get as much of it as possible into those I care for, right? My family, dear and sweet as they all are, are not tremendously courageous when it comes to trying out new recipes, bless them.

This time, my family surprised me.

They absolutely loved this soup. They still love this soup, after my preparing it for them countless times. Though fall is the ideal time to make this soup, when my garden is still full of heirloom tomatoes and bell peppers of every color and the pantry is well stocked with my winter’s supply of fresh onions and garlic from the garden, you can make it any time, even when you are reduced to buying canned tomatoes and fresh peppers and all the rest, and when we are struggling with winter’s doses of colds and the flu.

It’s a surprisingly delicious soup, and with all those nutritious vegetables, you just know that you’re building better health by the spoonful.

When there is somebody sick in our house, we always make this soup. The smell of all that garlic and the onions, too, simmering in a rich broth is enough to make the sickest person perk up a little. That smell says “Somebody loves me,” and that’s the first step in getting better, don’t you agree?

Soooo–tasty—!!

Have I convinced you to try it yet? Here’s the recipe, just in case I have:

I quadrupled this recipe because I have a large family and we like second-day soup the best. But you can cut it down to half, or even a quarter, if you don't want so much soup at once. It freezes well, too, though, so there's that to consider!

This soup, with all of its chopping and sauteing, is really a great thing to make with a couple of friends or children in the kitchen with you!

I’d love to hear about it if you try out this recipe, and if you’d like to share it with your friends (because they probably need to have more reasons to eat garlic, too!) that would be awesome, too. (And thank you!)

Well I think you know where I’m going with this one. I must have my daily garlic “Fix” or the world just does not spin correctly. I must make this recipe asap. Of course I will tweak it just a tad, chefs do that sort of thing you know. It looks so Good and I’m sure my wife will like it as well. Thanks for sharing a healthy recipe.

Chef, I like to make my own bread to top it with, also, something very hearty and chewy. Don’t use store bread, whatever you do, it’ll just soak in and be soggy. I’d love to hear about your tweaks when you make it! Thanks again for stopping in!

Oh wow, you may have noticed I’m a bit soup obsessed from the 40 plus recipes on my blog. This looks delish and I cannot wait to give it a whirl. I just love garlic too, it’s just amazing I’m going to share this my FB page.

I do, Lynda, I do! Let me work on a quick blog post for that. It’s just my basic light whole wheat bucket dough bread. It’s the easiest (and the best!) thing EVER. I’ll try to get that done in the next week or two, just for you! <3

— I use elephant garlic now, and plenty of it. The amount of cloves are still the same (80), but the elephant garlic is so much larger.

— I use red, orange and yellow peppers instead of green, and I (quite painstakingly) slice them very thin; the result is almost like a technicolor spaghetti effect, and with the dark bread, the soup is as intriguing to the eyes as it is to the nose and tongue.

Amy, herself. :)

Amy is married to good husband Bryan, and Mum to six smart alecks, Amma to five cutie-pies, and follower of Jesus. She lives on a few windy acres in Nebraska, with a motley assortment of chickens, too many roosters, cats, dogs, and one goose named Lucy. Her garden is too big, her house is never clean, and she'd always rather be OUTSIDE.

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